Manipur journalists condemn the threat of militants

Imphal: All Manipur Working Journalists' Union (AMWJU) and prominent editors on Tuesday condemned the 'threat' from some militants that their press statement should be published in local dailies without editing.

A spokesman of AMWJU said the executive members of the union and prominent editors held an emergency meeting to discuss the militants' threat to scribes and strongly condemned it.

He said there were so many militant factions in the state and if a press statement was published after properly editing it and checking it as per guidelines issued by the press council of India, another faction would threaten the media persons and media houses for publishing it.

Some militants want that their press statement should be published in local dailies without editing.

He appealed to the militant outfits not to interfere in the functioning of the press as journalists were serving the public by devoting themselves to their work.

A particular militant outfit has said it would target mediapersons, newspaper distributors and newspaper hawkers if their statement was not published in verbatim by local media.

Sources in the media houses said they would not publish the statement following instructions from the AMWJU adding that they could not work freely because of the threat.

AMWJU sources said the matter has been brought to the notice of the state home minister Gaikhangam who assured the union that proper action would be taken to prevent any untoward incident.

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